April 2011
1 post
Gelato and Getting Real
I was in New York again a month ago. This trip was important in a different clarifying way. It happened in a moment with gelato.
Mom and I originally planned to get ramen. I was going to write a final entry about immersing myself in a fragrant bowl, to the exclusion of all else…about how important real life is.
But it didn’t end up that way. She and I couldn’t get a cab...
February 2011
2 posts
A Slob's Mise en Place
This is my bedroom. Is it sloppy? I find it miraculous I can see floor space. Lots of floor space.
Not so long ago, I was a major slob. I think I’ve turned over a new leaf. I’m a minor slob. A semi-reformed slob.
I am the queen of piles. My clothes never seem to make it into the closet. You know what I wear every day from what you see on the floor. Fancy dresses and...
A Tale of Two (Or More) Cookies
When I was a girl, my primary playmates were two kids who lived a mile down the road. A girl my age and her younger brother. Their mother was (and is) a good friend of my mom’s. My childhood, as I’ve mentioned, was content and rather trouble-free. Whenever I went down the road, it was about playing to our hearts’ content, fending off the brother, then collectively being...
January 2011
1 post
Brioche & The Meditative Nail
In the new year I’ve made some resolutions. I’m not usually a resolution maker, because I’m a resolution breaker. What’s the point?
But this year I made some. Read more books. (Not hard.) Learn to knit. (Hard. I think I may be spatially challenged when it comes to yarn. Help, Natalie!) Publish something. (Oh lordy, don’t get me started on that one.) Love more and better.
That last one is...
December 2010
1 post
Christmas Contemplation, NYC...and Cookies
It’s taken me a while to come here. I haven’t blogged in an eternity..or so it seems to me. I needed a break to ruminate and embrace this holiday month.
More things have happened. Clarification. Understanding. Dust has settled. Anger and hurt has dissipated.
For all my 31 years, I’ve been skipping along a directionless path. Although the directionless aspect, in itself, is a direction. ...
November 2010
2 posts
No Self-Recriminations, My First Big Mac, and...
Ok, so that last glowing entry about love? It now goes a little something like this… *sound of toilet being flushed* Apparently, things are never what they seem. I was listening to a gorgeous symphony on the radio, then the plug was abruptly pulled. I didn’t pull it.
I’m still in a state of shock. That really did happen, didn’t it? Nevermind that glorious weekend....
New Stove, New Beginning
It’s been little over a year since I started this blog. Happy blogoversary to me! I started this as a project amidst unemployment while living with D in Baltimore. I’ve come a long way.
It’s been a journey. I’ve seen this space improve quite a bit. This blog is process to me. It’s like my life. I make mistakes. I try to learn from them. My photography...
October 2010
3 posts
Grilled Cheese Comfort
I am sitting here, listening to Pandora, thinking of what to write. I am listening to the Bomba Estereo station. I should be bopping around in my library computer chair. A little happy blogger bobblehead. Pfft.
All I can think of is how empty my head is. And how tired I am after a full day of work. And how not to become sick by the time I leave town on Thursday. I am going away for...
Of Senses and Gnocchi
When I lived in Buffalo, I collided with a bunch of Italians. You don’t meet an Italian, you collide with ‘em. No how-do-you-do and talk about the weather. It’s a swift flooding of opinion and passion. I love Italians.
I met them at a brunch they threw. Was it Easter brunch? I think so. At any rate, brunching with Italians…you have died and gone to heaven. No...
Autumn Starch and Solitude
Autumn. My favorite season. It’s the most mysterious season. It speaks of maturity, a turning inward from the height of summer. I’m not a fan of summer. It’s too darn hot. And cliché. Winter is deep immobile stillness. Spring is child’s play.
The last week of September going into October is my favorite. I live in Western New York, where the fall season is...
September 2010
3 posts
Baking Rehab
I am not a baker. Nor am I really that great of a cook, though people near and dear to me like to think so. I have too many mishaps.
Like overfilling cupcake tins, the cake crusting the top and gluing the contents in. That was for my best friend’s birthday, as blogged here.
Or the birthday cupcakes I made for myself, the frosting not quite coalescing. I still dream of mango butter...
Bachelorette Betty Crocker
The picture above was taken at my 30th birthday party…a co-birthday party shared with my friend Joe. The epitome of my bachelorette season, though technically I had a boyfriend, who attended that birthday party. I didn’t have a care in the world. I was happy and in love.
This is a characterization of the urban bachelorette. At least my version of it.
You date, but you...
Cancer & Croissants
I am one of those people who has letters after my name. I have a feeling I will be losing them soon.
It was around this time, five years ago, that I started training to become a CTR. Certified Tumor Registrar. When people wanted to know what I did, I always had to explain. Basically, I abstracted data from medical records. Things like tumor size, how far it spread, and the treatments used. ...
August 2010
3 posts
My (Gluten-Free) Best Gal Pal
How does one write about a friendship which has been so influential and monumental in one’s life? Where does one start?
I guess I will start with Mr. Ruch’s study hall. Mr. Ruch was my junior high school science teacher, a free spirit who played his stereo and jumped across the tabletops. His study hall was pretty empty, with five people at the most. This was where I met Krista.
...
Picked Fresh, Picked Frozen
My friend Venessa tweeted about eggplant the other day. She lives in a previous city-love, Buffalo, and owns a house with her fiancé Nic. They’re renovating their house, and she has planted a garden. It’s a bit of a vicarious pleasure to read her updates of domestic joys and frustrations.
She pulled an eggplant from the soil, exclaiming over the quality of her eggplant parmesan. I...
Vacay in Vermont
It’s been a while since I’ve gone anywhere purposefully. The last time was Paris. Yes, I’ve had months off this past year looking for a job and getting back on my feet, Baltimore and here at home. But there was an underlying desire to work. Being unemployed is as stressful to me as being employed. (In Baltimore, I had the added stress of figuring out what to do next after leaving a job which...
July 2010
3 posts
Trailer Days, Jem, and Root Beer Floats
When I was born, I lived with my parents in a white house. The problem was that it was too far away from my dad’s farm. So we moved into a trailer nearby.
I lived in that trailer until I was 11, then we moved into our present house up the road. I miss the trailer. It was warm, snug and cozy.
I grew up somewhat poor. My dad was a farmer and my mom didn’t go back to work until I...
Mama Cake
My relationship with my mother was defined from the very moment I was in her womb. A bit contentious. When she was six months pregnant, she flipped her car. Then I decided I didn’t want to come out and stayed put two weeks past the due date. I also had one foot twisted behind my ear, floating in breech position. There was no way I was coming out the natural way, so she had a c-section. I also...
June 2010
4 posts
Broken Yolks, Easy Money
I’ve had a bunch a different jobs in my life: waitress, antique store clerk, book seller, taco maker, smoothie girl, dishwasher, retail clerk, and cancer registrar. (The last one will be explained in a future entry.) Five of these jobs had to do with food. The other two had something to do with food peripherally.
My first big deal job was the last one, which had nothing to with food. I really...
Setting the Retro Table
Ever since the birth of television and other diverting technologies, the tradition of the sit-down dinner is a much scarcer one. The table with family, friends, and special moments. Heh, I’m eating a sandwich as I type this blog. My parents snack and watch a documentary behind me.
In trailer days, we didn’t have cable. We didn’t own a TV at all. We ate supper as a family every night at the dinner...
Blogs, Books, Blunders & Burgers
Although I write a blog, I can’t say I believe in them. I don’t surf the internet regularly anymore. I do email, Facebook and Twitter on my phone. The only time I get on a computer is to check a few things on my mom’s cranky dial-up or assemble blog posts. Technology alternately makes me marvel and grit my teeth in frustration.
I believe in books. My mom is a retired school librarian. When I was...
Home Salad
Home is feet. You can trod millions of miles all over this great green earth, but your feet are still your feet. Smooth or cracked, they’re still your feet. They take you everywhere you need to go. You start from your feet, you start from home.
Many people don’t have a place they consider home. I do. As much as I could wish it be somewhere else, maybe even making one with the person I love,...
May 2010
5 posts
Iced Tea Afternoons
There is something to being lazy. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those slugs who can’t hold a job. I’ve always believed in holding my own. BUT. When I am done with work, I AM DONE. And I know HOW TO CHILL.
It doesn’t involve a beer can in one hand and TV remote in the other. I don’t need a spa or Valium. All I want are three things: iced tea, reading material, and sunshine. The location...
I Love Fast Food
Ok. I admit it. I love fast food. Yeah, I’ve written about everything in moderation. Yeah, I’ve written about how American taste buds are overloaded with this junk. BUT!
You can’t get away from what you grew up with. The purpose of my blog is to link life with food. Food has a part to play in many moments of our lives. Even food which isn’t fancy. Or homemade.
My 10th birthday party, aside from...
Leeks & Land
Land is a being. It is a living organism with cells and roots running throughout it’s body, every part interconnecting with the other parts. Land, also like a body, holds an enormous amount of memories, not necessarily meant for us to solely remember. But we do play upon its stage nevertheless.
I like living in the country. Room to stretch, room to breathe. When I was in Baltimore with D, he took...
I Ate Paris
Well, not really. I had a brief wild fantasy the other night, of Godzilla Marie stomping around Paris, ripping off rooftops and scooping up people’s meals. Hahaha! Actually, that sounds like a fantastic way to sample this city, only on a smaller and more polite scale.
But I did go to Paris with my friend Meg almost exactly a year ago.
And ate only a fraction of a fraction of Paris. I had high...
Zen Bread
There was a beautiful moment a few weeks ago when I was prone on the couch. It had been a 12-hour day. I changed into my pajamas as soon as I came home. (If you don’t know this by now, pajamas are a big deal for me.)
I scooped up my sweet boy cat, Mr. Squeakers, and laid him on my chest. He stretched out fully along the line of my torso and started to fall asleep. His breathing was crackly at...
April 2010
3 posts
Barista Ruminations
I am a barista. A few weeks ago, a family friend didn’t know what that term was and asked. I am a coffee slinger.
Slinging coffee has it’s own meditative rhythm. The whoosha-whoosha of the espresso lever. The tamp-tamp of packing the espresso into the portafilter. The hooking in to the espresso machine. The punch of the single shot or double shot button. The trickling of the espresso tail until...
Freely Operatic: Violetta's Granita
When I was 12, I discovered I could sing. Not like the next American Idol. Like an opera diva.
I also discovered opera at the same time. My mother liked to take jaunts up to Rochester and poke around Borders Books and Music. It was there that I found cheap opera highlights cassette tapes. I think I started with Mozart’s operas. Then I bought La Traviata, starring Joan Sutherland.
I popped it in...
Crazy Stew
Hang on to your hats, ‘cuz this will be a doozy.
I’m a crazy girl. Yes, I am crazy. CRAZY!
But really, I have a mental illness which rockets me around the universe. Some days I feel great. Other days I feel awful. Some days I feel both of these emotions several times. Or these emotions at the SAME TIME. But some of the time I am ok. Really ok.
When you have a mental illness, you are living in...
March 2010
5 posts
Buddy Guy, Blues 'n Pie
I have a saying for myself: “Opera is in my blood, and blues is in my bones.”
Opera, my supreme music passion, will be addressed later. But for now, it’s the blues, baby, the blues.
Blues love hit me in the music of John Lee Hooker and Nina Simone when I was a teenager. The Hooker album is one of those “best of” compilations. Simone’s album is simply called The Blues....
Loved & Lost: A Grocery Store Metaphor
I’ve started reading Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast. He recalls time spent in Paris in the 1920’s. Vivid little nuggets flash by here and there. My favorite scene so far is of him sitting in a cafe drinking cafe au lait and writing, being “disturbed” (i.e. aroused) by a pretty girl while he writes. He was married at the time, but Hemingway is Hemingway. A man is a man.
Another...
Old will Renew, with Guinness Brew
I’m typing this, drinking a can of Guinness. Well, part of a can. I really don’t drink these days. Dad got the rest. I had Guinness back in Buffalo days, and I didn’t like it. Now it’s not half bad, tasty actually. Rich and dense. Dad has never drank it, so I bought it for him.
I was at Wegmans, looking at all the beer. The beer section has expanded considerably since the last time I’ve seen it....
Pancake Poignancy
I miss D. Much has cleared in my mind, but what remains is deep love for him. I can’t help it. The heart wants what it wants. It won’t go away. My mind flashes through moments with him both lovely and meaningful.
When I think of our relationship, the wonderful thing about it was that it was founded on a respectful friendship. When you strip off the layers of romantic love and desire, what lies...
31st and Mango Butter Cream
My birthday is this Wednesday. I will be 31. I’m not terribly excited about it. Last year was 30 and a big freakin’ deal. I MADE IT it a big deal. This one is a blip way UNDER my radar. I turned 30 and was riding high. This year I feel old from all the stuff I’ve been through since then. MEH.
Adding to that big fat MEH was starting a new job as of this last Friday. I don’t really want to write...
February 2010
4 posts
Health Guru Banquet, Part 1: The Sensible
I wrote this in my Foodbuzz profile: “Asking me about a favorite dish is like asking the Pope what his favorite cathedral is.”
But there are foodstuffs which loom large in my mind: Barbeque. Hot dogs. Corn dogs. Pizza. McDonald’s french fries. Fried anything, really. Krispy Kreme donuts. Bacon cheeseburgers (especially with blue cheese, please). Bacon by itself or with anything,...
Winter Soup & Solace
I’ve been hiking.
Crunch, crunch, crunch. Stop. Heartbeat catches up. Listen. Silence.
The silence is absolute. You strain to hear something, anything at all, maybe a distant car? Nope.
My home is on a dirt road out in the country, last one on the left. You don’t notice the house until you are almost upon it, its sheltered by trees. The route I usually take is further up the road, all the way...
Valentine's Day Massacre
My romantic history has been a mixed bag of lessons, some good, most bad. I’ve loved, but I’ve been IN love twice. The first time around, it was with someone who didn’t really love me back. I was his afterthought. It took about eight years of wishful thinking and pining for me to realize that. That drawn-out lesson cut a clear path for me. I had a better idea of what to look for. Anything...
The Purr-fect Meal?
When you are a food blogger, you write about food, right? Well, food for human consumption, that is. This is a bit different. The appetites involved are of the feline persuasion.
I’ve never been much of a cat person. They act too much like me: a bit persnickety, a bit bitchy, and so stubborn. You don’t own a cat, they own you. They decide when to come and go. Dogs, on the other hand, are...
January 2010
4 posts
The Cheap, The Pricey, & The Worthy
The economy sucks. But frankly, everyone is to blame. I am to blame. I was in Buffalo for four years, a bachelorette living a charmed existence and frittering away my paychecks. I was stupid, blind, and didn’t care. And now I have a chunk of debt, no job, and an uncertain future.
What partly got me here was a sense of entitlement. I was worth it, damn it! I got my first big job with benefits! I...
9 tags
Rascally Raymie's Birthday Cupcakes
My father turned 70 yesterday. He is a rascal, with a cover of so-called innocence. He was called Raymie when he was young, and he is still Raymie. Even some of my high school friends call him Raymie. Look at the picture below, when he was a young man. You can see the devilish twinkle in his eye. His precious camper is in the background. He claims that was for “bible study”. Mmm-hmm.
...
Bacon Fat, Race, and Gaining Soul
In preparation for yesterday’s run of recipes, I fried onions in bacon fat Saturday. I have never fried in bacon fat before. Butter, yes. Various oils, yes. Bacon fat, no.
I have been feeling, in the words of one of my tweets, like an “overstuffed foie gras duck”. I’ve been trying to gain weight. I dropped a few pounds since I’ve been home. Maybe the medication has done this, as it...
Post-Holiday Wake-up and Make-up
I have been a big brat lately. But with heartbreak, the holidays, and bipolar playing bumper cars in my head, maybe I have something of an excuse.
My emotions are a bull in a china shop. Here is a better metaphor: when I was a toddler, my dad would build a tower of blocks in front of me. After he finished, I knocked them all down with a gleeful laugh. That is how bipolar feels to me. I build...
December 2009
4 posts
In the Kitchen with Sophia
My father is a consistent man. He is a retired farmer who worked hard all his life. He likes things which always satisfy. Like McDonald’s. And Carhartts. And curvy women. More specifically, chesty women. I don’t think it is mere coincidence that he shares a birthday with Dolly Parton. He and I would go through the Victoria’s Secret catalog while I was in my teens, and I pretty...
A Lasagna Life
December 19th, 2009:
I am stuck in a corporate “country inn” in Harrisburg, PA with my mom. Snowed in, plus she has been battling a cold. After enormous amounts of TV, I have cabin fever and am writing this on the hotel lobby computer. I moved out of Baltimore Friday and am on my way home. No more job, no more relationship.
I am bipolar. I have a long history of it, the most recent...
Coffee, Tea, and Conviviality
I wrote in my previous post about coffeehouses in Fredonia, NY. I compared a coffeehouse to a bar, but with a bar, it is too close or too far for comfort. A packed bar is stop-and-go, a mingling of energies and combinations. A Wall Street trading floor, too much chaos for my taste. This may work, that doesn’t, on to the next person or idea. Too few people, and everyone is stranded in their...
Brown Bean Days
I like to learn. A lot. I have a lot of interests and passions. I have done college several times. I don’t have a bachelor’s degree. Yet. I do have an associate degree from the second college, which landed me my previous healthcare job. And now I am back in retail again. Hop, hop, hop. Where to hop next? Life is an adventure.
My first college experience was at SUNY Fredonia in Fredonia,...
November 2009
7 posts
I Work at Williams-Sonoma
So my employment situation is a complicated one. Before I moved down to Baltimore, I worked in healthcare in front of a computer eight hours a day. I did this for four years. I really liked my work, especially the research aspect of it, but somehow I don’t think it quite fit my personality.
I get antsy. My brain burbles on a lot of ideas, constantly going. I am coming to the point where I...
A Love/Hate Relationship with Laurel’s Kitchen,...
I am a curious eater. I don’t mean curious as in inquiring (though I can be that too). I mean curious as in perplexing. At least to myself. I mentioned in the previous post that I will try anything and relish almost everything. This stands contrary to my eating habits as a little girl. I was one of those PICKY EATERS.
Noooo!!! Yes. I wouldn’t eat vegetables. Peas, for instance. I...